MOVE: CHOREOGRAPHING YOU
13 October - 9 January 2011
This autumn the Hayward Gallery presents seminal works and new commissions by leading artists in Move: Choreographing You. Exploring the historical and current relationship between visual arts, dance and performance, the exhibition focuses on visual artists and choreographers from the last 50 years who create sculptures and installations that turn the audience into active participants - even into a dancer. It is accompanied by a series of performances at Southbank Centre by acclaimed choreographers including Trisha Brown and Rosemary Butcher.
Artists include: Janine Antoni, Pablo Bronstein, Trisha Brown, Tania Bruguera, Boris Charmatz, Lygia Clark, William Forsythe, Simone Forti, Dan Graham, Christian Jankowski, Isaac Julien, Mike Kelley, La Ribot, Xavier Le Roy and Marten Spangberg, The OpenEnded Group and Wayne McGregor, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Joao Penalva, Yvonne Rainer, Franz Erhard Walther and Franz West.
The exhibition takes as its starting point the Judson Church Theater and Allan Kaprow's Happenings in 1960s New York, which blurred the boundaries between art and life. Curated by Stephanie Rosenthal, Chief Curator, Hayward Gallery, the exhibition explores how everyday movements have been a driving force in the development of both contemporary art and dance since the 1960s. It examines how visual artists in the 1960s and 1970s used choreography as a means to encourage audiences to experience art with their whole body, whilst increasingly over the last two decades artists have used dance and performance to explore how everyday behaviour is choreographed and manipulated.
The exhibition brings together a series of sculptural works and installations, some of which can be activated by visitors. Under the direction of choreographer Xavier Le Roy a group of resident dancers, alumni of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Music, will rehearse and perform within the gallery, activating works and directly engaging with visitors to discuss the role of choreography. Within the gallery they will perform Simone Forti's Huddle (1961) daily, and Yvonne Rainer's Trio A (1966) once a week, allowing visitors to see the works performed close up.
Among the early works from the 1970s included in the show are Bruce Nauman's Green Light Corridor (1970) and reconstructions of Lygia Clark's seminal installation The House is the Body (1968), Trisha Brown's sculpture The Stream (1970), not seen since the 1970s, and Robert Morris' bodyspacemotionthings (1971).
The exhibition includes the UK premiere of Isaac Julien's Ten Thousand Waves (2010) a video work shot on location in China, which explores the movement of people across countries and continents and choreographs the visitor through a complex installation of nine screens in the gallery, and William Forsythe's The Fact of Matter (2009), described by Forsythe as a choreographic object' featuring 200 gymnast rings suspended at varying heights from the gallery's ceiling, which test the visitors' physical strength and mental agility as they try to cross the room without touching the floor.
Mike Kelley's Adaptation Test Room Containing Multiple Stimuli Known to Elicit Curiosity and Manipulatory Responses (1999) presents a kind of a playroom, where oversized objects are meant to be touch and interacted with. During the exhibition dancers will animate the installation performing choreography by Anita Pace. Christian Jankowski's playful invitation to visitors to hula hoop in the gallery and on the outside sculpture terrace, recalls Trisha Brown's Roof Piece from 1973.
New commissions in the exhibition include a film made in collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and digital artists The OpenEnded Group, which captures McGregor performing the Hayward Gallery stairwell; an installation and performance by Pablo Bronstein; and a new work by La Ribot.
At points throughout the exhibition visitors can pause to explore a touch-screen digital archive designed by Unit9, which brings together photographs and films of 120 of some of the most important performance works from the last 50 years. The archive will enable visitors to watch well known works and rarely seen performances by artists and choreographers including; Charles Atlas, Lucinda Childs, Michael Clark, Merce Cunningham, Deborah Hay, Yves Klein, Akram Khan, Katarzyna Kozyra, Daria Martin, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mathilde Monnier, Ivana Muller, Robert Rauschenberg, Robin Rhode and Li Wei. The archive has been co-curated by Andre Lepecki, Professor of Performance Studies at New York University.
The exhibition has been designed by Amanda Levete Architects.
Stephanie Rosenthal, Curator of Move: Choreographing You, says: "I believe that this will be a totally new approach to experiencing the crucial and inspiring relationship between art and dance. I hope that the exhibition will give people a new awareness of their own bodies in space and how they can interact with the environment around them."